Is there wisdom in anger? A Hindu magazine honors its "Hindu of the Year." And the plight of Muslim immigrants in the United States is considered. It's Faithful Friday, our news segment about faiths and religious communities around the world. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

Three years ago, I sat up most of the night in front of my computer, watching the debate on HB2, one of the nation's most restrictive abortion laws, live-streamed from the floor of the Texas Legislature. That was the night of Wendy Davis's courageous filibuster, and although I had been unable to drive to Austin to be part of the Unruly Mob in person, I was glued to the proceedings. In between watching debate, tweeting out and Facebooking links, and talking to my fellow activists who were terrified that this bill would pass and essentially end access to abortion and other forms of reproductive healthcare in Texas, I was silently thanking my high school debate coach for teaching me parliamentary procedure and how to "flow" debates. In the end, the Republican senators broke the chamber rules and voted the bill in just past midnight. Another special session would be called, and the bill would become law. It effectively closed the majority of abortion providers in Texas -- many of which also provided other vital healthcare.

Today, the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) struck down that law, citing two provisions -- that all abortion providers meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers, and that all abortion providers have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles -- as placing an undue burden on those seeking abortion care.

I fundamentally believe that no person is free if they do not have full bodily autonomy. Fighting for the right to access abortion and other reproductive healthcare is a cornerstone of the Feminist Craft around which my life is built. In today's decision, I see the hand of the Goddess of Justice. It is a step toward greater bodily autonomy for all people who can get pregnant. A step towards having the true right to make decisions about your body, your family, your health, without undue interference from the state. This is an act of Goddess in a very real sense.

There are still impediments to abortion in Texas, including a 48 hour waiting period and a mandatory transvaginal ultrasound. There is still mandatory abortion counseling which requires providers to share outright false information with patients. The financial burden of abortion falls on women who can least afford it but who most need the procedure. There are more fights to fight. And I don't delude myself that the Republican legislature here will cease trying to craft laws that make abortion illegal or totally inaccessible.

But today is a win, and as a priestess for justice and as a witch who worked and fought and cried alongside the Unruly Mob, I will celebrate.

There is a quite different argument against abortion I have heard from several Pagan women.I am more sympathetic to it than to the usual “fetus is human” claim that I demolished in my previous post.Even so, I think it ultimately fails, though it does complicate a woman’s decision.

Before I can explore the real motivations behind so-called ‘pro-life’ movements, I want to address it.

Does abortion murder spirits?

During an earlier discussion of the abortion issue I received an email from a woman who wrote me: “. . . you don't have to be Christian to have found out that abortion does in fact feel like murder - those fetuses' spirits were already talking to me and yes I feel duped by the feminists and like a murderess.”

I have spoken with many women who, like her, are convinced spirits that intended to become their children had been in contact. One woman told me that during a Brigid ritual she had been contacted by the spirit who would have been born had she not had an abortion. Another told me a spirit had given her the name she wanted to be known as when she was born. When the baby was born she received that name.

I believe them. I have no trouble believing that some, maybe all, births have a reincarnational dimension.I think there is considerable evidence this is so. (Wikipedia has an good overview of research on the issue.)

In addition, the evidence for consciousness surviving death seems to me overwhelming. ­­­­­­­ Such departed beings might wish to be reincarnated. Having an abortion definitely deprives a spirit of incarnation in that particular instance. And perhaps there are spirits seeking their first human incarnation as well.

These spirits were already centers of awareness, relationship, and future plans without being incarnated in the flesh. In these accountsthe spirits evidenced far more sentience and awareness than one could expect from a tiny bunch of cells that had just came into existence.

If spirits can communicate with potential future mothers, they pre-exist the egg’s fertilization. Given that they do not have a physical body, and they apparently continue afterwards as they had previously, there is no reason to think what happened was murder.

Murder is of a human being, or as my alien example argued in my previous Witches and Pagans postof the moral equivalent of a human being.

In that post I argued whatever else it might be, a zygote and at least many fetuses are not human beings in the moral sense because they cannot enter into any human style relationship.

From my present spirit centered perspective a zygote is growing into a future home that a otherwise separate spirit will inhabit. But the home is not the dweller, and particularly a future home is not the dweller.

Do such spirits have a right to being birthed by the woman of their choice?

I think an analogy helps clarify the issues involved.

An Illuminating analogy

Suppose a woman is approached by a man who tells her he is in love with her and cannot live without her. She is that important to him.She does not know this man but he says he selected her because of qualities of hers that he admires.Perhaps he also tells her in a previous life they agreed to become lovers or were otherwise involved.She cannot remember this previous life. Does she have an ethical duty to marry him?

I can’t imagine anyone saying she does. And many would say she is asking for trouble if she did because he does not love her, he loves his image of her, if he understands love at all.

If in deep despair the man then killed himself, it would be a misfortune; but no reasonable person would hold the woman responsible. She might feel badly for him, but we would regard her as foolish if she then blamed herself for his death and believed she should have acceded to his wishes.

I think the parallel is strong with the spirit issue except that in the case of the abortion, no human died. We could easily argue a spirit needs to make sure it is welcome before choosing a potential body. Why should its desire for being born be more important than the woman’s view of the matter?

In my opinion arguing a woman must give birth to a preexisting spirit because it has chosen her to be its mother is one more example of turning women into being primarily servants of others out of a sense of duty or fear. In this case to a currently immaterial other. Someone else’s needs and wants have preempted and subordinated the woman’s. If she chooses to give birth she should be honored, but if she does not, she should not be condemned. We do not walk in her shoes.

In my view nothing is more important than the relationship between a child and its parents. These relationships shape the rest of their lives, for both good and ill. Loved children are vastly better off than those who do not experience love, or experience it intermittently. For there to be solid love the relationship between a mother and child must be completely consensual. Neither would have it any other way.

Of course love could develop even when it is initially absent. This was the case within some arranged marriages of the past and I am confident it remains true for some today. Fortunate couples developed loving and satisfying relationships no matter how they might have begun.However I cannot imagine these happy outcomes constituting justifications for forcing marriages on couples who otherwise would not have gotten married.

Given that the spirit that would have entered the fetus still exists and hopefully will find a willing mom, the woman who wrote me that email committed no murder in any sense. The at least somewhat different child who embodied that spirit after being born to a future and more willing woman would never have come into existence if the first woman had been forced to give birth.One possible being came into existence and another did not, no matter which choice was made. But one outcome also enabled a woman to exercise control over her life whereas the other would have demeaned her to a womb with legs and a brain to serve it.

Not giving birth to that child with that spirit constituted a road not traveled and perhaps it would have been a good one if she had.Or perhaps not. Or perhaps the one the woman ultimately traveled was better for her, either in terms of this life, or spiritual lessons, or both.

Our lives are filled to the brim with such forks in the road, with paths not taken, paths quickly disappearing over a hill or around a bend.Giving birth or not is one of life’s larger forks, but it is still a fork.

Karma?

Someone might argue I am ignoring possible karmic relationships between a spirit and its potential mother.But if they exist neither I nor anyone else has the slightest idea what they are.It could also be that the spirit was an unloving person and its karma is to spend some time without a body until it learns to be a better being. Perhaps it needs to learn to take the desires of others than itself into consideration, and will be frustrated until it does.To use the language of karma, that may be its lesson rather than her giving birth to it being the woman’s lesson. She might be helping the spirit learn its lesson by not having it as her child.We do not know. We do know the woman has a life to live.The choice should therefore be hers, and no one else has more than an advisory status. Including the spirit.

Summing up

These two columns have made several points.First, those who equate the biologically human with the morally human confuse two different categories, one of which clearly lacks the moral weight to override a pregnant woman’s choice and the other of which is not linked to biological humanness. Those arguing a fetus is morally a human being because it is biologically human are arguing nonsense.Worse, it is dangerous nonsense because it undermines the insight most fundamental to human morality: that no one is simply a tool for another.

In addition, the pre-birth reality of a spirit that could become a child gives us no convincing reason why its interests should override the views of the woman it chose to be its mother. Presumably like the rest of us, she was once such an entity.Having been born human, it is up to each of us to live that life and learn and accomplish what we believe to be best for us.

But as I wrote at the beginning of my first essay, the real issue here is not abortion. Something much deeper is going on, and the current passions for outlawing all abortion are, for a great many, simply surface expressions of these deeper issues.

These issues have nothing at all to do with being “pro-life,” as my next post will demonstrate.Further, we as modern Pagans, have much to contribute here to the challenge of increasing this society’s reverence for life.

One of the first things the new Republican majority has done in Congress is to escalate the battle against legal abortion.Republicans have long been seeking the world’s most restrictive lawon abortion. Today, in the midst of what most people would regard as far more pressing issues, Republican leadership is seeking to further restrict women’s access in ways that ultimately alienated even many Republican women members of Congress. The reasons for their fanaticism go deeper than the reasons anti-women’s rights groups give for opposing abortion.They go to the root of who they are.

My book Faultlines argues the American culture war, in which the abortion issue plays such a central role, reflects a conflict between an ancient deeply hierarchical agricultural rural civilization and a new industrial urban civilization incorporating far more egalitarian values.This new world began arising in Western Europe and the US, beginning in the 1700s. It is neatly symbolized by the year 1776, when the American Revolution and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations both appeared.Every modern culture carries a deep division between these two different ways of life, and in the US it was first exemplified by the Civil War, and now by the culture war.

Central to this culture war are how women, the feminine, and nature are treated.This is why issues involving women’s rights or a sustainable world are so often linked on both sides. Those hostile to women’s rights are often also hostile to respecting nature.The reverse is true for those of us supporting women’s freedom. Yes, there are exceptions, but the broad pattern is clear.

This and some columns to follow explore why this is so. To make my case I must show why arguments against legal abortion fail, why we modern Pagans mostly line up on one side of these issues, and illuminate the core reasons why opponents of women’s freedom are so implacable. These reasons have nothing to do with the supposed rights of a fetus.

To begin, I need to show why no argument succeeds in making a rational case for outlawing abortion.Here I will discuss what I believe to be the strongest argument against it. In one form it shares an insight with those of us who love the other-than-human as well:“Life is beautiful and sacred, and at its core full of love. Therefore abortion is wrong because it is anti-life.” More generally, many anti-choice people argue that since it is wrong to kill peaceful people and since a fetus is human, it is wrong to kill a fetus.

Life and Death

Let ‘s begin with the issue of life and death, for abortion involves killing a fetus or a fertilized egg.If life is sacred what are we to make of causing death?

Life’s abundance is intimately connected to the presence of physical death.Without carnivores initiating a co-evolution of predators and prey into increasingly competent organisms, we would have not evolved beyond the level of blue green algae. From the coming into being of the first multi-celled beings, death has been an inevitable outcome for each, even if we escape predation.Life is a process of beings going through cycles of birth, growth, maturity, decline, and death, as we recognize and honor through the Sabbats of the Wiccan Wheel of the Year or similar other Pagan practices.

Imagine a world where beings could reproduce but never died. Most beings reproduce far more individuals than are needed or desirable to carry on the species.In time, and not much time, such a world would become a hell of suffering from starving overpopulation. Most young plants and animals are eaten, but their being eaten enables other beings to flourish. Universal immortality would be no blessing to beings that reproduced.

In this respect I have always liked Gary Snyder’s observation: “‘What a big potlatch we are all members of!’To acknowledge that each of us at the table will eventually be part of the meal is not just being ‘realistic’It is allowing the sacred to enter and accepting the sacramental aspect of our shaky temporal personal being.” (p. 19)

Physical death is a part of life, not an assault on it. Its presence has enriched the forms and beauty life takes.As such, in its own way death is sacred. What lies beyond is mystery, but those who love life have no reason to regard death as something amiss with the world, something that needs ‘fixing.’

This point sets the broader context for discussing abortion.

Human Life

Anti-choice advocates argue abortion ends a human life. Does it?

We need to be clear about what we mean by “human,” and the anti-choice crowd combines two different aspects of being human in arbitrary and confused ways.

Biologically at least 25 to over 30% of fertilized eggs become natural miscarriages.But if it survives to birth and after, the embryo will become a caring human being. The embryo is indisputably biologically human. And we agree that killing human beings of no threat to other human beings is wrong. But does biological humanness provide the qualities giving people the moral standing appropriate to human beings?

It does not.

To see why, let’s start with mice.

Why does a mouse lack human moral standing? Killing a mouse is not murder. When we prepare land for building a home we strive to make sure no human is injured in the process.We feel no equivalent duty to mice. Why?Is this difference in attitude simply an unexamined habit?No.

We cannot enter into human style relationships with mice. So far as we know, mice do not know what it means to promise, they do not dream of their futures and the futures of their young, love others of no utility to themselves, or take responsibility for their actions.Occasionally, under stress, mice will eat their young. I know of no human equivalent, and a great many human mothers certainly live under stress.

I am not saying mice have no moral standing. They do. But they do not have the same kind as human beings. A good person will not go out of his or her way to injure a mouse, and indeed will go out of their way not to do so.Up to a point. In my view we have a responsibility to treat other beings with respect.

But this is not the same as treating them as equals.

If we were to learn mice had the above human qualities, our relationships with them would become very different. We would recognize they were more like us than we have any current reason for thinking.We could enter into complex meaningful relationships with them. They could arguably become moral equals.

Now consider a hypothetical intelligent alien. Let us grant that such an alien can make promises, dream of its future and the futures of its offspring, love others for themselves, and take responsibility for its actions. Science fiction is filled with examples of such beings, and perhaps the universe is as well. Such an alien will not have our biology. We are more related biologically to mice, or even to an earthworm, mushroom,or algae, than to the alien.

If such an alien was able to enter into friendly relations with us it would demonstrate a capacity for human style mental qualities far in excess of a mouse. We could relate to it as a peer.Such an alien would arguably have ethical standing equal to a human being. Killing a peaceful alien of this sort would be committing murder in a way that killing a peaceful mouse is not.

If you can follow me this far then I think it is clear it is the relative capacity to enter into ethical relationships that determines moral standing. The issue is relationships and not biology.

The moral standing of a fetus

A fetus gains in moral standing the more it possesses human capacities, not human biology. It seems obvious a fertilized egg cannot promise, cannot make plans, and has no self awareness. If a fertilized egg fails to implant itself in the womb we do not bewail the death of a human being. We do not even know it happened.

Early term fetuses have these human relational qualities only as distant potentials. Future mothers care for their fetuses because of what they might become, not for what they are.A fetus is no more a human being than an acorn is an oak tree. In both cases the value here lies in their potentials.

Most of us who love babies, and I am one, love them because of what they are as well as for what they might become. Babies can enter into relationships with us, relationships that deepen daily before our eyes, until they become relationships between equals. But from the very beginning, babies relate. A mother who abandons her baby to die is not analogous to a pregnant woman who has an abortion.

From the fertilized egg to a baby we observe a developing capacity to move from potential human moral characteristics to actual ones. Newborn babies still cannot enter into as many complex mutual relationships as can adults, but they interact with us in ways a fertilized egg never can. We are observing a continuum. There are legitimate grounds for arguing over how the moral standing of a fetus changes as it develops.But there is no reasonable argument that at least at most stages it enjoys anything approaching moral equality with a human being.

Given this simple fact, it seems to me that over most of the process leading towards giving birth it should be entirely the woman’s choice whether or not to carry a fetus to term.

My argument transforms how we should regard women desiring to give birth.She should be honored for doing so, and not considered simply a container whose life must now be subordinated to another’s. In other words, treated as a slave.Rather, a mother should receive credit and honor for one of the most powerful actions a human being is capable: bringing another into the world and taking responsibility for seeing that it is raised to adulthood, either by herself and her family, or by giving it up for adoption.

But the fetus-is-human argument is more than logically incoherent.It also has a very dark side.

Moral nihilism

Making biological qualities the standard for moral standing ultimately destroys morality. Those using it unwittingly undermine the case for any morality at all.They begin by turning the mother into a means to achieving “life’s” ends. The well-being of the fetus, an organism far removed from the morally human, has priority over the woman. A pregnant woman is essentially a slave of the fetus.Her freedom ends when it conflicts with serving it. A woman having a miscarriage can be, and in strongly anti-choice countries, is deemed a murderer and can be incarcerated for decades. [It turns out women have also been jailed in this country, only not yet for so long. added 1/25/15]

This argument destroys the only powerful case for ethics: that beings such as humans are never properly simply means to others’ ends. They possess intrinsic qualities that forever separate them from objects. Now the mother’s qualities do not matter over simply serving reproduction, and so serving entities that do not come close to any human ethical capacities at all.

The implications arising from this reasoning are as dark as they can be. As my opening comments explained, human life emerged from a long evolutionary process in which successful life forms consumed less successful ones. In purely biological terms a species’ success is defined by the fitness to survive physically over time. Therefore any weakness within a species undermines its long-term viability in a competitive world. From this perspective a successful moral system is much like animal husbandry: it is good for humanity when it does not preserve such weaknesses.

Historically this view led directly to eugenics: the plan to eliminate ‘less fit’ humans to ‘improve the race’.The US was one of its major centers, and its support here came from across the political spectrum. Some but not all conservatives, liberals, and progressives considered themselves its backers.. They accepted the logic of subordinating morality to biology. America’s eugenics programs were admired by the Nazis, but here gas chambers for eliminating the unfit were only discussed whereas in Germany they were ultimately built and used.

Anti-choice advocates arguing “the fetus is biologically human and so has human rights” thereby turn women into means for ends separate from their well-being denying the reality of human rights.They legitimize a style of reasoning that works better for eliminating the unfit than for protecting zygotes, thereby incorporating amoral nihilism into the core of Western ethics under the misleading claim of being “pro-life.”

Honoring mothers

Life is sacred and its core is love, but love is relationship and a fully human life is a life deeply embedded in caring relationships.The love at its core emerges into our world through relationships. We become fully human only through our relations with the world and with other human beings. Even the most advanced fetuses have taken only the first steps along this path. They are not fully human in any way that counts morally.

It is the mother who carries a fetus to term, risking her life and usually committing to many years of service in raising the child to adulthood who merits praise.Far from being a vehicle or slave, she should be honored. But is it no accident that the most anti-choice people and cultures are also the most dismissive of women’s value beyond being mobile wombs.As to why this is so, a full explanation requires a few more essays, but this is the beginning. And by eliminating what I think is the strongest argument against abortion, it stands alone as worthwhile as well.

There is no tension between honoring life and regarding it as sacred and fervently supporting a woman’s decision as to whether or not to participate so intimately in bringing another life into the world.

--

On Saturday I corrected some minor errors in biology that reflected a man's ignorance of the birth process. I appreciate that error being brought to my attention.

Read more]]>gdizerega@gmail.com (Gus diZerega)Culture BlogsFri, 23 Jan 2015 19:00:37 -080040 Days of Ritual to Keep Abortion Legalhttp://www.witchesandpagans.com/sagewoman-blogs/third-wave-witch/40-days-of-ritual-to-keep-abortion-legal.html
http://www.witchesandpagans.com/sagewoman-blogs/third-wave-witch/40-days-of-ritual-to-keep-abortion-legal.htmlHere in the Deep South, it's been a rough few months for women's health. The passage of a draconian anti-abortion law -- despite the courageous efforts of Texas State Senator Wendy Davis and her allies -- has led to the closing of several women's health clinics, and will lead to the closing of many more. In Arkansas, one of the most restrictive abortion bills in the country was signed over the summer, banning the procedure in most instances later than 6 weeks. At no other time in American history since Roe v. Wade have women's reproductive rights been so under attack.

A large portion of the work I do as a Feminist Witch centers on securing social justice for women, including the right to bodily autonomy and self-determination. I see my pro-choice politics as a logical extension of my spirituality. Part of what draws me to Feminist Craft is the idea of empowerment through ritual and magick, and my feminist politics hold that we can never be truly empowered until we have control over our fertility -- from having the ability to prevent or terminate a pregnancy, up to and including the ability to make our own choices about how, when and whether we will birth and raise children. Although I am committedly child-free, I am passionate about reproductive justice for all -- not just choice but justice in terms of access to resources that allow us to make choices.

October marks an annual campaign called 40 Days of Prayer to End Abortion, led by many conservative Christian groups. These groups hold prayer circles in their homes and outside women's health clinics and pray for an end to abortion. Pro-choice Christian groups have formed a counter campaign, 40 Days of Prayer to Keep Abortion Legal. Given the number of pro-choice Pagans out there, I have launched my own event this year: 40 Days of Ritual to Keep Abortion Legal.

This campaign is exactly what it sounds like. For 40 days, I am inviting Pagans of all paths to engage in whatever spellwork, ritual, or spiritual work they choose, with a focus on keeping abortion and reproductive health care safe and legal for all. You may work in groups or alone. You may choose to do the same ritual every night, or engage in different workings. You may do full-blown ritual, a simple candle spell, or dedicate your meditation practice to the cause of reproductive justice for the next 40 days. There is no wrong way to participate -- the goal is to have as much energy flowing toward the goal of safe and legal access to abortion and other reproductive health care as possible. There's no need to curse or work against those who are behind laws like Texas' and Arkansas', or to direct negativity at protestors, as tempting as that may sometimes be! Instead, our goal should be to offer protection for those seeking reproductive health care and protection of the right of access to that care more broadly.

If you'd like to join in 40 Days of Ritual to Keep Abortion Legal, there's nothing official you need to do -- just engage in the work. I'd love it if you'd comment here telling me you're in! You can also join our (very new) Facebook page -- share pictures of your altars, descriptions of your rituals, and just connect with others to build the energy.

40 Days of Ritual to Keep Abortion Legal runs from October 7-November 16. It's perfectly fine if you can't participate all 40 days -- any energy towards the cause of reproductive justice is welcomed!

Tonight at about 12 midnight, Eastern Standard time, the government will likely shut down because of women’s wombs. Yep. Legislators who object to provisions within the Affordable Care Act of 2010 that cover contraceptives, are threatening to stop all government services. It’s like time-traveling back to the heady year of 2010 when the Act was signed into law except then the Act came close to failing because of abortion. For many of us who have had abortions and fought for women’s reproductive integrity, this was a hard, hard sideshow to watch: the politicians scrambled over themselves to see who could disavow abortion more passionately, something they’d never, ever support. This procedure, one that millions of women use, is still so stigmatized that the merest suspicion that the ACA might be used somehow to fund it almost sent the first meaningful health care act of our lives back into legislative limbo.

Really, the whole terrible episode showed that when it comes to abortion, Republicans and Democrats are very capable of working across the aisle. I’m thinking here of Bart Stupak, the Blue dog Democrat, who co-authored the Stupak-Pitt amendment, a redundant amendment that forbade federal funding from being used to cover abortion. Bart, Bart, I yelled at the unhearing computer screen. Did you not know? The Hyde amendment already forbids federal funding for abortions. You don’t need to trouble yourself. But he did. He wanted to trouble himself: he needed to show just how outré the commonplace procedure was. It was an embittering lesson.

This was the message I heard as an abortion-having witch: Did you have an abortion? Well, consider yourself part of the problem. NOT the solution.

I don’t want to get into the legislative history too much. I want to make the point that as of this writing, abortion and birth control, two very common and wholly legal procedures, are not accepted and are apparently capable of shutting the government down. Yet, one third of all women have had abortions. Many women I know have had abortions. I have. Most women I know use birth control. These are the measures we take to govern our reproductive lives. Under the best circumstances, they enhance our health. They ensure we stay integrated: that we are a whole healthy system.

Most of us are familiar with the Irish myth, called “The Debility of the Ulsterman.” If not, here are the basics: Macha, the great goddess, lived with a husband named Crunnchu. While in assembly, he bragged about his wife’s ability to run as fast as any horse. She was fetched and forced to run a race while heavily pregnant. “Will you not wait until I am delivered?” she asked. The king said no. “Shame upon you who have shown no respect for me,” she replied. “Because of this you will suffer the pain of women in childbirth.” She ran the race and won. Immediately she sank to the ground in great pain and delivered twins. The men of Ulster who laughed at her plea were doomed to suffer the pangs of childbirth at times when their strength was needed the most.

There is so much to this myth that fascinates me. The image of the penalized, anguished female body is on full display in this myth, along with some nasty misogyny. (The men of Ulster laughed when they heard her plea.) Macha, I think, was pleading for her health, certainly. But she was also pleading for something else: integrity. I might be able to run, she may have said. But I am pregnant. This was Her wholeness. Macha’s legs were prized; the men wanted them and the speed they could summon on display. Her pregnancy was edited out of their comprehension of her state. Her body was perceived like a cubist painting; disjoint and unconnected, legs separate from womb, both separated in the welter of the men’s utter incomprehension and brutality, from her mind and heart.

Macha’s ordeal proves that the war on women is not new: what does it mean that even a goddess like she, a great Queen, one of the three who commands our devotion, could not get the respect she needed to safeguard her health while she inhabited a human body and consented to take on the role of the child bearer? She was reduced to bits: a pair of legs. A womb.

A woman’s body – our bodies-shouldn’t come to the health insurance exchanges like that- this bit seen as insurable, this other bit not. Our sovereignty depends on our wholeness.

To any woman reading this (if you have gotten this far in my angry lament) I’ll tell you what: It doesn’t matter if you never have and never would have an abortion.

As of this writing, you are not seen as whole. That will always be a problem. It can never be part of any solution.

N.B. These beautiful illustrations are the work of Louis Le Brocquy, Irish artist and illustrator. They appear in Thomas Kinsella's translation of "The Tain".